NEWCASTLE'S MUSICAL HERITAGE AN INTRODUCTION By ...

disposal a substantial orchestra under the leadership of Mr J.H. Beers. An
1895/6 programme sets out the objectives of the Society; ‘Cultivating and
diffusing the knowledge of and taste for high-class music’ and goes on to say that
the Vocal Members must be nominated in writing and elected by the Committee
after being approved as to musical fitness by the Conductor. Members were
called upon to practice every Tuesday from September to March. They gave two
concerts a year, mostly in the Town Hall Concert Room. These started out as
Invitation Concerts but by 1896 Subscription concerts had been introduced. The
full flavour of these concerts can be sampled from an announcement in The
Musical Times for October 1911 under music in Newcastle-on-Tyne and District,
which reads:
‘A Cowen concert – to include ‘The Veil’ and the Overture ‘Phantasy of life and
love’ both conducted by the composer – will be given by the Choral Union on
November 29. Sir Frederic’s old orchestra, the Scottish, will play, and there will
be included Elgar’s ‘Go, song of mine’, to be conducted by the chorus-master, Dr
Coward. On March 27, our premier choral body will give Dvorak’s ‘Spectre’s
Bride’, Parry’s ‘Blest pair of Sirens’ and Bantock’s new unaccompanied choral
ode in twenty parts, ‘Atlanta in Calydon’
Twenty-one years earlier, in 1875, William Rea had launched his Newcastle
Amateur Vocal Society with great success. It had over 200 members, who paid
10/6 (50p) for the privilege of joining and had to practice every Monday evening.
He was very strict and made it clear that those who did not turn up for practice
would not be able to take part in the concerts. The concerts covered a wide
range of composers from Cherubini through Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert,
Schumann and Mendelssohn to Neils Gade 1817-90 (A Danish composer very
popular with the Victorians – not to be confused with Jacob Gade, 1879-1962,
the author of the popular tango ‘Jalousie’). In 1886 Dr Rea joined forces with the
Northumberland Orchestral Society and for the five years of the collaboration his
programmes began to include symphonies and other large orchestral works The
Vocal Society continued into the 20 th century but in 1897 Dr Rea was replaced as
conductor by J.E.Jeffries, FRCO, possibly for health reasons. On 26 th March
1896 the following complimentary piece appeared in the local press:
‘To many people present in the Town Hall on Tuesday night it would be quite a
pleasure to see Dr William Rea once more occupying the position which, in days
gone by, he filled so frequently and with such advantage to the cause of music in
the North of England. It is impossible to see Dr Rea occupying the rostrum in the
Town Hall with baton in hand, without recalling a host of successful
performances of great works which he was the means of introducing to this
locality, and recording our sense of the great services he has rendered to the art
of music in this locality. Such services are, unhappily, soon forgotten in the rush
and high-pressure of the present day world but their effect is lasting and many
amateurs willingly acknowledge their indebtedness to Dr Rea for giving them
their first taste of the delights of music’
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